The
drug war violence continues in Mexico, as analysts continue to pore over
the grisly murder statistics, looking for trends. It’s rather morbid
when you think about it, as these statistics represent real people who
were killed.

Analyzing
the statistics is not easy as the sources are not always in agreement
on the exact numbers. And trends take time to develop.

The
good news is the overall rate of violence dropped slightly from 2011 to
2012. But what will the results be at the end of this calendar year?

You
can also break down the stats by state and city, as the violence levels
vary greatly among Mexico’s cities, states and regions. The situation
in Ciudad Juarez, for example, has greatly improved while in the city
of Torreon it’s gotten much worse.

After
the numbers have been crunched, how can the data be utilized in order
to fight crime? That’s an important question.

Another
complication is the change in the presidency. On December 1st, Felipe
Calderon of the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional) was replaced
by Enrique Pena Nieto of the PRI (Partido Institucional Revolucionario).
There’s a political issue involved, as partisans of one or the other
party may be inclined to put a different spin on the stats to make their
man look better. There’s nothing unusual about that, it’s
politics. But the temptation to do so should be resisted, if we really
want to see the big picture.

To what
extent will Mexico’s new president fight crime differently than
Felipe Calderon, the previous president? That too remains to be seen.

The
new president´s strategy is to reduce violence by reducing crimes
such as murder, kidnapping and extortion, not necessarily to go after
cartel chiefs.

Pena
Nieto plans to form a new federal police force, the Gendarmería
Nacional. Also the new administration has divided the country into
five operational regions to facilitate coordination with local Mexican
authorities.

The
concrete realization of these plans has yet to materialize. The Pena Nieto
presidency is still in the early stage.

November
of 2012 was the last month of the Calderon presidency. According to Milenio,
there were 949 killings related to organized crime. In December of 2012,
according to the same source, there were 982 such killings. That was an
increase.

It’s
unlikely though that the blame for the increase can be laid at the door
of the new president. After all, nothing much changed in one month, it
could just be a statistical glitch.

Now,
how about the three full months in which Pena Nieto has been president?

Let’s
consider two sources – the Mexican government itself, and the Lantia
consulting group which has its own calculations.

For
the month of December 2012, the government claims 1139 drug war killings
while Lantia reports a total at 1166 killings. Note that both figures
are higher than Milenio’s figure, see above. If you study the Mexican
drug war, conflicting statistics are part of the game.

In January
of 2013, the government claims 1104 drug war killings, while Lantia reports
1032 killings. (The government figure is not always lower than a private
estimate, as you might expect).

For
the month of February 2013, the government estimate 914 killings, while
Lantia calculates 847.

Note
that these two sources differ, but each of them, in the three months under
consideration, show a lower rate of killings than the previous month.

It’s
too early to say that it’s a trend, much less a long-range trend,
but we can certainly hope so.

At this
point, though, it probably doesn’t have much to do with the change
of the presidency. Pena Nieto has not yet made any great changes to Mexican
security policy and may well continue some of Calderon’s policies.

And
looking at the violence by city, the Lantia statistics indicate that in
February, the northern city of Monterrey was the most violent, with 46
killings, followed up by Acapulco with 43 killings and Culiacán,
Sinaloa with 25.

The
overall government figure for February (914) would be the lowest drug
war murder rate in 40 months.

However,
it’s still too early to say if this is a trend. It sure would be
good if it were. However, we have to wait and see how things develop.